S. Martin Shelton – Page 10 – Retired U.S.Navy Captain, Novelist

Amelia, 2009 Film Review

Fox Sunlight Pictures. Mira Nair, director. Hilary Swank and Richard Gere lead actors. Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan screen-play writers. 111 minutes. 2009.

So I’m tardy with this review. Not so. I published it in In Sync magazine in its January 2010 issue—shortly after I viewed this film. Now that my new social media is functioning, I’m publishing it again. It synchronizes with my upcoming short story book Aviators, Adventurers, and Assassins which contains a flagship documentary-style novella that reveals the skullduggery extant on Earhart’s last flight, entitled Amelia. (See sheltoncomm.com)

I’m an ol’ codger. Amelia Earhart was an icon in my youth. As an eight-year old nipper, I remember clearly where I was and what I was doing when I heard on the radio broadcast that Amelia Earhart was missing somewhere near Howland Island in the Central Pacific. Yes, I’m that young. With the massive search conducted by the US Navy, I was confident that they’d find her. To no avail, unfortunately. Accordingly, I have a vested interest in Amelia Earhart.

To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, Amelia is an awful film. It’s a great film.

Let’s explore “awful” first. Amelia is a mishmash of miscellaneous scenes that lack coherence and purpose. This film stumbles along some path I cannot discern. If the viewer does not know the details of Amelia’s life, they may well wonder, when the lights come on, What was this film about?

Infrequently does Amelia engender empathy. Without empathy, there is no involvement, entertainment, or communication. On the whole, directing and acting are pedestrian—save Swank, from time-to-time. Gere is wooden—not the robust hustler that was George Putnam.

I cringed that far, far too many close-ups show the actors staring into space looking at something off screen, or infernally smiling about something we cannot fathom or see. Amelia is more of a romantic film than an autobiographical film of the dynamic aviatrix. Perhaps, I expected too much.

Technical errors are myriad. No need to discuss here; there’re posted on IMDb. However, I’ll discuss a few that particularly vex me. This film overlooks the fact that Amelia Earhart was a mediocre pilot, at best. That’s what killed her. She was over confident, stubborn, and had a narcissistic ego. She believed Putnam’s publicity. She failed to listen to her mentor, Paul Mantz, about learning Morse code and using the long-range antenna to transmit its signals. She was palpably ignorant about radio procedures and its technical factors. Her refusal to practice radio protocols with her guide ship, the USCGC Itasca is particularly troubling and is the direct reason of her death.

The last scene is a disaster—a collage of technical nonsense. Earhart is lost. She cannot find Howland. She is low on petrol. And she cannot communicate with the Itasca with congruity. Again prior knowledge of these few critical minutes is essential to understanding this scene and her fate.

If I were directing this last scene, we’d see the Electra from a high-angle, rear shot flying over the ocean and receding in size until it disappears. On the soundtrack, we hear the twin-engines on the Electra purring loudly. As the Electra decreases in size, the volume of the engines reduces in synchronization with the visuals. Mixed with the engine sounds, we faintly hear the jumbled voice radio-communications between Amelia and the Itasca. This voice also fades in volume. Shortly we hear the engines supper, cough, and quit, one by one. Then silence as the Electra disappears from view.

It’s a great film. I was disappointed that Art Direction did not get a nomination for an Academy Award. Airplanes, props, costumes, and automobiles set an authentic 1930s ambiance. Swank is Amelia—outstanding look-alike with makeup, hairstyle, and clothes. Most of the flying scenes of the ol’-time airplanes are spectacular—even the computer generated. The blending of newsreel footage into the narrative is excellent. Lastly, the Richard Rogers and Lorentz Hart tune Blue Moon sung by a pretend Billie Holiday stirs the soul.

International Brigades in Spain 1936-39 by Ken Bradley: A Book Review

The clue to the authors political bent is in his Dedication: “To the volunteers of the international brigades who gave all they had to oppose international fascism and to preserve a free Spain.” (My emphasis on “free.”) Republican Spain (again another euphemism) was anything but free or a republic. In 1936, when the Spanish Revolution began, Spain was in the firm grip of the Soviet Union’s Communist International (Comintern), and the government was pro-Marxists, and the USSR was the primary supplier of arms to its Army. Spain pair for these arms in silver coins from it colonial glory-days—not at its numismatic value but rather at its current price in troy ounces.

“Republican” was the Comintern’s successful agitprop to disguise the true nature of the Spanish Communist government. It launched severe oppression against the Catholic Church, monarchist, Carlists, and any group opposed to its dictatorial-socialists agenda. In this chaotic environment, Fascists General Francisco Franco started the civil war.

Here a few snips from Bradley’s narrative illustrating the Comintern’s influence in Spain and the International Brigades:
• “…there was a meeting at NKVD (Soviet Secret Police) in the Lubianka (Prison) in Moscow.”
• The Comintern organized a network to get foreign volunteers to join the International Brigades in Spain.
• Communist Parties in various countries handled recruitment for the International Brigades)
• Political Commissars were included in each company, battalion, and brigade.
• George Orwell served in the Catalan (Socialists) militias.
• Commissar Walter Tapsell had been the leader of the Young Communist League in Britain and circulation manager of the Daily Worker.
• General Emilio Kleber, Thaelmann (German) Brigade was an agent of the Comintern military section of the Red Army.
• Captain Tom Wintringham, British Battalion, was a member of the Communist Party, editor of The New Left Review, and later a correspondent for the Daily Worker.

Bradley gives short shrift to the campaigns in this Civil War. He skims over key battles yet inundates us with city and province names without providing a map. In detail, he discusses the names and official numerical designation, composition, and affiliation of the International Brigades—actually done in more detail that I need to know. He notes that most of the soldiers were fighting for ideals and not for money. Most soldiers were working-class people, intellectuals, and labor leaders.

His primary focus is on the uniforms of the soldiers of the International Brigades—illustrated in twelve-color plates. This book is more of a reference book than an exploration of the Spanish Civil War for the curious reader.

The Last Prophecy, Jon Land Book Review

I’ve seen this book many times past. Not exactly this one book but other books, films, and tales with the same basic plot: intrepid adventurers discover an ancient and secret writing or glyph well hidden in some exotic/dangerous/gruesome local. Only some obscure university professor/retired cryptographer/computer geek can decode this mysterious writing. Meantime, eeevil (keep “eeevil”) forces conduct a virulent campaign of violence and skulduggery to prevent the decoding and to keep the adventurers at bay: usually a handsome fellow and comely lass who initially are at loggerheads, then sure enough they find love, etc. Overcoming all hazards the pair get the text decoded and sure enough it details incantations to call Beelzebub to rise from Hades to purloin our souls, or reveals the scheme of some ancient religious order/military cabal/or space aliens plans to rule/destroy the world.

Back to the book. The Last Prophecy is seriously overwritten in codswallop: 414 pages of small print in the paperback edition. The flood of words becloud the thrust of an obscure and typically thin plot. The narrative lacks coherence making it difficult to comprehend—it wanders from local to local introducing different characters with agendas that seem to be disconnected. We are inundated with ornamental minutiae that muddle the narrative making this tome even more difficult to follow—it’s just so much unnecessary word filler. Another negative I have with this book is that the author suffused the narrative with screeds about how awful/brutal/inhuman the Israelis treat the downtrodden, deserving, and debauched Palestinians. Lastly, at last, the plot is contrived to a crippling fault in several scenes as the Deus ex machina saves our daring-do characters from a fate worse than death, or even worse.

Actually, stripped with extremely sharp editing, this book would make a straight forward, interesting adventure novella of 50K words or thereabouts.

Book Review: Engineers of Victory: The Problelm Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War

Engineers of Victory:
The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War

Paul Kennedy, Random House, New York, 2013, 438 pp., with maps and Tables, photographs, Notes, Bibliography, and Index.

Kenny posits that there were five key tactics to the Allied victory in World War II.

How to Get Convoys Safely Across the Atlantic
How to Win Command of the Air
How to Stop a Blitzkrieg
How to Seize an EnemyShore
How to Defeat the “Tyranny of Distance.”

Kennedy discusses, at great length, the singular elements in each item: intelligence, technology, tactical and long-term strategies, planning, and the civilian and military scientist and engineers who fashioned new weapons to counter the enemy’s initial advantage, and the verve of military leaders.

In item one, for example, Kennedy avers that victory over the Kriegsmarine’s U-boats—the scourge of the North Atlantic—sinking merchantmen at an alarming rate and practically serving the life line to an isolated and embattled Great Brittan was a combination of several factors: long-range aircraft with new anti-submarine weapons, cryptographers at Bletchley Park who broke the German Navy’s Enigma code, the Hedgehogs multiple mortar weapon system, advanced and more powerful dept-charges, introduction of Jeep aircraft carriers with their anti-submarine aircraft, and other items all combined to defeat the U-boat menace in the North Atlantic.

In item two, Kennedy details the appalling loses of the Eight Air Force’s B-17 and B-24 bombers in their 1943 daylight raids on the Third Reich—each aircraft with a ten-man crew. For example, on the raids on the ball-bearing factories in Schweinfurt in October 1943, on just one day the Luftwaffe’s experienced pilots shot down sixty of our bombers—a staggering loss rate of twenty percent. Dozens of other aircraft were badly damaged and limped home to their airfields in England—almost all with severely wounded airmen. For the experienced Luftwaffe pilots the Schweinfurt raids were a “turkey shoot”—some aces had over one-hundred kills at war’s end. Simply, the United States Army Air Corps did not have a long-range fighter aircraft that could escort our bombers to their targets and return and to fend the Luftwaffe.

Meantime, the North American Company produced the P-51 fighter, powered by the Alison V1710 engine. At best, the Allison-powered P-51 was marginally satisfactory as a low-altitude interceptor. A Royal Air Force test pilot flew the P-51 and recognized its superior aerodynamics and very low drag. He recommended that the Rolls Royce Merlin V-12, in-line, liquid cooled 1,500 horsepower engine be installed in the aircraft. Viola! History was made. Now the high-altitude P-51, fitted with two, 108 gallon drop tanks, escorted our bombers all the way to Berlin. The slaughter of the B-17s ceased and the Luftwaffe fighter pilots suffered appalling loses.

For a comprehensive understanding of this excellent book, the reader must have an in-depth knowledge of World War II, a worldwide atlas stored in the mind, and a compelling appetite to ferret the myriad details of the five key battles of the last world war. Clearly, Engineers of Victory is not for the average reader. This book is more appropriate as a textbook for the military academies or a war college, or for academic researchers.

Book Review: Engineers of Victory, by Paul Kennedy (historynet.com)

Russian Julian Calendar

Imperial Russia used the “old style” Julian calendar that was seriously out of kilter with the solar seasons and religious holidays—in particular Christmas and Easter. The Russian Orthodox Church had political and religious issues with the Pope in Rome that dated back centuries, and refused to change to Pope Gregory XIII’s Gregorian reform calendar introduced in 1582.

The Julian calendar lagged the Gregorian calendar by 12 days. For example, Christmas, 25 December 1916 in the Gregorian calendar was 7 January 1916 in the Julian calendar. On the first of February 1918, Vladimir Lenin ordered the Soviet government to switch to the “new style” Gregorian calendar—so that the USSR would be in synchronization with the rest of the world.

Julius Caesar, Emperor of Rome. (July 100 BC to 44 BC)

Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar in 45 BCE (Before Common Era) to reform the old Roman calendar that was inordinately complex and seriously out of date. Over the following years, most of the civilized world adopted this calendar—even though it had serious errors. For example, this calendar introduced a one-day gain every 128 years, or about three days every four centuries as compared to the equinox and the seasons.

I invite you to join the Czar Nicholas’ Christmas ball on the 7^th of January 1917 in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, Imperial Russia— set in my historical novel titled St. Catherine’s Crown. Formal gowns for the ladies and with a tiare russe and gentlemen with white-tie, tails, and miniature medals if you’ve earned them.

Meet Author, S. Martin Shelton

Thank you to Central Texas Authors for posting my guest blog.

What compelled you to pen St. Catherine’s Crown, a historical novel about the Russian Revolution?

I chose to write about the Russian Revolution—the overthrow of the monarchy and installation of an atheistic Communist regime—to refresh our minds of its monumental impact on world events for seventy years. The Bolshevik’s leaders—Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Felix Dzerzhinsky head of the Soviet secret police, for examples—exercised their unmitigated evil and bilious paranoia by slaughtering some twenty- to thirty-million Russians. The malevolent cruelty and manifestly unnecessary regicide, is a horror of their rabid Communist orthodoxy that engendered the slaughtered of Czar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra and their five children, including their youngest daughter, Anastasia.

The Comintern apparatchiks spread its tenancies worldwide to overthrow western democracies and corrupt its citizens with agitprop in the media, films, and universities. For several decades, we fought the Soviets in Winston Churchill’s “Cold War,” oftentimes on the cusp of a real nuclear war.

Since I was a nipper, I had interest in Anastasia because of the films, stories, and flimflam hustlers hawking the fiction that she survived the regicide and was living incognito in some exotic locale. During my naval career and after retirement, I studied Russian/Soviet and modern-day Chinese history.

Scribing St. Catherine’s Crown was a classic evolution process. It started as a short story about fifteen-years ago. I combine my two interests: Russia andChina into one narrative. I started with the tale of the regicide and the then acceptable idea that Anastasia survived and escaped to a refuge in China.

As a young lad, I enjoyed stories about the orient—especially the comic strip titled “Terry and the Pirates,” by Milton Caniff—who featured such gorgeous femme fatales as the Dragon Lady, Burma, and Copper Canyon.

My tale grew into a novella as I developed Anastasia’s China adventures with blackguards that included the femme fatale, Black Orchid: whom I based on The Dragon Lady.

For reasons I cannot explain I could not leave this tale alone. Then several years ago, I stumbled upon an article about the Czech Legion—never heard of this outfit. Did research, got interested, and decided to incorporate the Legion into my narrative. My novella evolved into a complete historical novel.

*****

Captain Shelton retired from active and reserve naval service several years ago. He was an photojournalist skilled in several facets of his profession and has an extensive background in Soviet and Chinese studies. He served in the Korean and Vietnam wars. His duties required that he travel throughout the world and with particular emphasis on the Far East.

Shelton earned his Bachelor of Science degree (Physics) from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, and his Master of Arts in Cinema from the University of Southern California. For several years, he produced a host of information motion-media shows, winning over forty awards in national and international film competitions and festivals. He was elected a fellow of the Society for Technical Communication and the Information Film Producers of America.

Shelton has published extensively in trade magazines, peer-reviewed journals, and commercial publications. After retirement from the Naval Reserve, he completed his book Communicating Ideas with Film, Video, and Multimedia, which earned the Best of Show award in a major publication competition. He continued his writing completing his first novel St. Catherine’s Crown. He has authored a number of short stories and three novellas, all unpublished. Now he is working on his second novel, which he has titled Abyssinia. The narrative is set shortly after the conclusion of the Second Italian-Abyssinian War in 1936.

Visit S. Martin Shelton at: www.sheltoncomm.com

The Russian Revolution changed the world forever (workers.org)
Russian Revolution: Urgent lessons for U.S. Today (divinefreedomradio.wordpress.com)

Romanov Jewelry

Fabulous hardly describes the vast treasure of the Romanov jewelry cache. Below are a few samples of this vast collection. For those who have a keener interest I recommend the book titled Jewels of the Romanovs, Stefano Papi, Thames&Hudson, New York, 2010.

The Imperial Arms of the House of Romanov

Empress Alexandria's Double-Eagle Pendant — Empress Alexandria’s Double-Eagle Pendant

Coronet Created for Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna

Diamond and Emerald Kokoshnik for a Grand Duchess

Imperial Nuptial Crown, 1840 with Antique Brazilian Diamonds at 275 Carats

Imperial Orb, in Red Gold, 1784 with Diamond Surround and Indian Light-Blue Diamonds of 47 Carats

Join the Czar’s1916 Christmas Ball in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg—formal gown or white tie and tails required—as seen in the narrative of my historical novel St. Catherine’s Crown. See the diamond encrusted Imperial Crown on Empress Alexandra, the magnificent collier ruse on Grand Duchess Tatiana, The diamond chain of the Order of Saint Andrew on Grand Duchess Maria, the coronet of diamonds and emeralds on Grand Duchess Olga, and the double-strand diamond collier d’esclave on Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Europe’s Most Beautiful Princess: Elizabeth Romanova (rbth.co.uk)
Presenting the Romanovs: Their Lives in Art and Objects (rbth.ru)

Catherine the Great

Catherine the Great of Russia, (1729 to 1796). Reigned from 9 July 1762 to 17 November 1796. Catherine became Czarina on the death of her husband, Czar Peter III. Her reign is a study in contrast. Legend has it that she organized a plot to have some of her sycophants murder Peter, and that her sexual proclivities were legend. On the other hand, the actual historical record is replete with accomplishments.

In 1757, Voltaire called her an “enlightened despot.” For example, Catherine established the Free Economic Society in 1765 to encourage the modernization of agriculture and industry. She promoted trade and the development of under-populated regions by inviting foreign settlers, and she founded new towns. Catherine patronized the arts, letters, and education. She permitted the establishment of private printing presses and relaxed censorship rules. Under her guidance, the University of Moscow and the Academy of Sciences became internationally recognized centers of learning; she also increased the number of state and private schools. Finally, Catherine greatly expanded the Russian empire–prizes from two successful wars with Turkey. After her death, the Russian Orthodox Church proclaimed her a saint.

In my historical novel St. Catherine’s Crown Catherine the Great’s diadem is the raison d’être that threads the narrative and is the Alfred Hitchcock’s MacGuffin. Follow the adventures and trials of those Whites that want to keep the crown from the Bolsheviks, and those Reds that want to recover and exploit it. Follow from afar, I might suggest. The narrative is fraught with hidden perils.

Black Orchids

Black orchids with their luxurious beauty symbolize great power and authority. They are a very formal and sophisticated flower, and are the preference of the cognoscente. Some folks associate black orchids with mystery, witchcraft, and terrifying tales and myths.

Black Orchids are members of the orchidaceous family. There are two primary types: those that grow on the ground and those that grow on trees. There are six species (including the “Dracula vampire”) and four or five hybrids. Nonetheless, it is the Liparis nervosa that is only truly pure deep black orchid.

Indeed the black orchid is a flower of great beautify and mystery. Nonetheless, I caution you not to cultivate the femme fatale Black Orchid in my historical novel St. Catherine’s Crown—else you may well receive a bouquet when only your relatives may enjoy them. You’ve been warned!

Trans-Siberian Railroad

The Trans-Siberian Railroad is the longest railway line in the world connecting Moscow to Vladivostok at 5,753 miles, and has branch lines to Ulan-Bator, Mongolia; Beijing, China, 4,888 miles; and Pyongyang, North Korea, 6,380 miles. This railroad spans seven times zones and takes eight days to complete the Moscow to Vladivostok trip.

By the mid nineteenth century, Russia was in serious need for a Pacific deep-water port. Accordingly, in 1860 Czar Alexander II authorized construction of Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. By 1880, Vladivostok had grown into a major port. Soon the authorities realized the obvious problem that there was not an adequate transportation link between European Russia and its Far Eastern and Pacific provinces. In 1891, Czar Alexander III authorized the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and it was completed in 1916 under the aegis of his son Czar Nicholas II. By-and-large, convicts and political prisoners did most of the work.

Hop aboard the Trans-Siberian Railroad and relax in the opulent coach reserved for important Soviet apparatchiks. In my historical novel St. Catherine’s Crown the train lumbers through Siberia mile after mile after mile. Perhaps I ought to caution you to be wary of Nadia, the hostess in this car. She is available (for a fee) and duplicitous to a fare-thee-well.

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Thank you to Central Texas Authors for posting my guest blog.

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